HOW FEAR HELPS THE
GUN BUSINESS
This post is not about politics, it's about events in US
social history and the response within US society. The NRA and firearms industry
have fueled and capitalized on that response. All three need our attention -
how we respond to social problems; the NRA; and firearm makers and dealers. The
first is what most needs our attention - how we as an enlightened, humane
society respond to social problems and the conditions that cause them. It's the
best essay I've found on the subject of guns in modern US history. There may be
a pay wall so here are some excerpts.
"The story of how millions of Americans discovered the
urge to carry weapons—to join, in effect, a self-appointed, well-armed, lightly
trained militia—begins not in the Old West but in the nineteen-seventies. ...
In 1977, more than half of all American households had a gun in the house. By
2014, it was less than a third. Each gun owner now has an average of eight
guns, according to an industry trade association. ... In 1977, a third of all
adults lived in a house with at least one hunter, according to the General
Social Survey; by 2014, that statistic had been halved. [Gun dealer Mike]
Weisser said, 'The gun industry, which had been able to ride on an American
cultural motif of the West, and of hunting, is realizing that’s gone. Plus,
you’ve got the European guns coming in that are so good that the U.S. Army is
even using them. Jesus Christ Almighty, we’re fucked.' In 1998, an
advertisement in Shooting Sports Retailer warned, 'It’s not who your customers
will be in five years. It’s will there be any customers left.' Richard Feldman,
a high-ranking N.R.A. lobbyist in the eighties, who worked as a liaison to the
industry, told me that companies looked for ways to make up for the decline of
hunting: 'You’re selling whatever the market wants. It doesn’t matter where you
make your money. It’s irrelevant.' ... Much as the industry capitalized on the
Los Angeles riots, it has excelled, since 9/11, at tapping into the fear of
terrorism. ... In recent years, the gun industry’s product displays have become
so focussed on self-defense and 'tactical' gear that some hunters feel ignored.
After a trade show in January, David E. Petzal, a columnist for Field &
Stream, mocked the 'SEAL wannabes,' and wrote that 'you have to look fairly
hard for something designed to kill animals instead of people.' The contempt is
mutual; some concealed-carry activists call hunters 'Fudds,' as in Elmer. ...
The chances of being killed by a mass shooter are lower than the chances of
being struck by lightning, or of dying from tuberculosis. The chance of a
homicide by a firearm in the home nearly doubles the moment that a firearm
crosses the threshold."
++++++++++
Let's see if I correctly understand the recent article on
guns I posted. Many white folks in the US were alarmed over black folks and
their supporters demonstrating and rioting in the '60s and '70s. Many of these
people became fearful, judgmental, resentful, and blaming. Instead of seeking
an understanding of why blacks were complaining and rioting, and, if any of
their complaints had merit, what if anything might be done to address their
grievances, many whites decided to call the disturbances a law-and-order matter
with an often unspoken undertone of group-blame based on racial prejudice and
bias.
A large part of their response to this perceived threat to
their person, property, wealth and power was to buy guns and shoot blacks and
anyone else who might try to rob or harm them. This, such whites thought but
most would not say, would help protect themselves and their stuff, and slow
down or stop the ongoing erosion of their societal power and privilege.
Let's now consider what happened next. Most Republican
politicians and key fundamentalist Christian leaders quickly jumped in and
proclaimed their strong support for this kind of thinking and action.
Underneath it all they knew it was a quasi-law and order response yet they went
along with it and festooned it all with religious righteousness and patriotism.
Now, let's see how this response to America's social and
cultural evolution toward a more just, humane, rational society worked out.
Well, we now have a society where gun selling, buying and use are, for all
practical purposes, poorly controlled to the point that a significant number of
preventable deaths of innocent people cannot be stopped. Worst of all, the
majority of a major political party and their base of supporters are on the
verge of putting forward a vulgar, race-baiting, misogynist, laissez-faire
uber-capitalist for the US presidency.
How did all this happen? Go to the top of this post and the
essay and start over. What can we do? 1) Do not confirm Trump as the GOP
nominee. 2) If he's nominated, vote against him in November and encourage
others to do the same. What about the problem of choosing inappropriate
responses to social problems? Support people at all levels of society and
circumstances who offer societal and individual responses and solutions based
on reason, unbiased research evidence, and critical thinking; and oppose in all
forums and situations those who act on, feed into, racialize, politicize,
profit from, and supernaturally sanctify our emotions and fears.
~
RELIGION AND THE
SECULAR STATE
Here's another description of the complex relationship
between religion and secular states. And we think the US situation is a mess.
